Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, Grann - B +

                                                The Osage refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon because new and taller plants crowd out and kill the smaller ones already budding and send their petals into the sky like confetti. The Osage of the 1920's were considered the wealthiest people in the world because every member of their tribe collected a quarterly dividend in the thousands from the oil found on their reservation decades before. The Osage had purchased their land in Oklahoma with the monies the US had given them when booting them out of Kansas. They thus had a stronger hand to play when the Territory was opened up to white men and were fortunate enough to have language placed in the state Enabling Act providing the tribe with permanent mineral rights, even if an individual Indian sold his share of the tribe's land.  In May 1921, two Indians were murdered at about the same time and likely with the same .38. One of the two, Anna Brown, had a sister who had preceded her in death and a mother who died soon thereafter. It appeared as if both the sister and mother had been poisoned. In the following months more were poisoned, and eventually, a national newspaper ran a headline 'CONSPIRACY BELIEVED TO KILL RICH INDIANS'. The Indians' wealth attracted jealousy and attention. The US intervened to appoint guardians and restrict the natives' access to their own money.  Anna's sister and her husband were blown to smithereens when their home was dynamited in 1923. The official death toll in the Osage Reign of Terror was now 24. Whenever someone investigated and made some progress, they were found dead soon thereafter.  In 1925 Jim White, an agent of the Bureau of Investigation, an obscure federal agency,  arrived in Oklahoma. He had been sent personally by J. Edgar Hoover in an attempt to save the fledgling bureau's investigation and likely, Hoover's career. White was a wizened former Texas Ranger who was able to dig deeper and fine-tune probable suspects. What he did establish within a few months, though, was that many of the whites involved with helping the Indians were, in fact, ripping them off. It has been estimated that by 1925, the local legal, advisory, and business community had siphoned off $8 million of Osage money. White's investigations pointed to Anna Brown's surviving sister, Mollie, who inherited quite a bit of mineral rights and was married to Ernest Burkhard. At that point, Mollie's two children with Burkhard were the potential recipients of a bona-fide fortune. A local businessman, and coincidentally Burkhard's uncle, William Hale, seemed to be at he center of much that was questionable, yet he was beloved by all and was known as 'The Reverend'. The Feds arrested White and Burkhard with the intent of turning Burkhard, which they did. White obtained the confession of another witness, but Hale would not admit guilt.  Newspapers reported that the ensuing trial generated more interest than the previous year's 'Scopes Monkey Trial'. The first trial of William Hale ended in a hung jury; the second rightly sent him to Leavenworth for life. Hale was met at the prison by Jim White, who had tired of moving for the Bureau and welcomed the stability of the job as Warden.  Hoover was able to leverage White's success into establishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, providing it with new police powers and an extended mission. The 'G Men' were now a national legend.

                                          The author concludes with a section on his research for the book and his discovery that there is much more to the story. The Reign of Terror was generally thought to have occurred from 1921-25 and coincided with William Hale's time in Osage Country. The author searched records far and wide and believes it started as early as 1919 and was still going on in the 30's. He names names and finds dozens more cases of Indians who were poisoned, disappeared, or were straight out murdered for their money. 'Tis another sad chapter in the plight of those who were here first and, in this instance, flat-out robbed long after the frontier was closed.